Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/265

 R. WALLASCHEK, Psychologie und Pathologie der Vorstellung. 251 supported by much carefully handled psychological material, what the ground-work of aesthetic appreciation is. Dr. Wallaschek at no point leaves us in doubt as to his meaning. With him aesthetics is " the scientific study of men at the moment of artistic enjoyment or artistic production. It is not the doctrine of the nature of objects, but of their effects. As such, it has nothing to do with the problem of works of art as pure objects detached from the im- pression that they produce. It is neither a mere normative science of the object (Art-philosophy) nor yet mere physiology ; it is an analysis of emotional excitement (Begeisterung) and uses as its material the knowledge of the condition of a man when he finds himself under the influence of those things that he enjoys for the sake of enjoyment " (Preface). That this view is in some degree a " departure from the tradi- tional view " may be granted. It is not here necessary to discuss the validity of the theory. It is enough that it forms a definite basis for the analysis of a definable mental state. This it certainly does. Let the broad proposition be accepted that there are artists, and art-products ; it follows that one way of discovering what is the truth about them is to study the mental condition of the artist at the moment of production, if that be possible, and the mental condition of the spectator while he is enjoying the product. The two are correlative. That which in the spectator enables him to see a picture as beautiful is the same in kind as that which in the artist enables him to produce the picture. And they are both allied to that which enables all to " enjoy for enjoyment's sake ". Hence, there is a wide basis for inductive analysis. Dr. Wallaschek says : "The old aesthetic spoke of the object and has remained subjective ; we shall speak of the subject and hope thereby to attain to a stand- point that is objectively valid ". How far he has succeeded in this only a detailed study of the book can show, but the exposition is all relevant to the purpose in view. The composition is clear and trenchant. The scholarship is extensive, but lucidly produced. There are fourteen pages of bibliography. Altogether the book seems to me an excellent piece of analysis lucid, concrete, critical. For the present the author confines himself to the analysis of "Vorstellung". He quite recognises that for a complete theo- retical basis of aesthetics a parallel investigation must be made of sensation, feeling and judgment. The nature of " Vorstellung," which for this purpose I may translate as representative idea or representation (including process and product), Dr. Wallaschek attacks from the standpoint of physi- ological psychology (including pathology). Part I., which occupies one-third of the book, deals with Speech, Singing, Reading, Writing, Mimicry, Gesture, Action in their pathological relationships. The point of view is that accidents of disease frequently result in a genuine analysis of physiological and, therefore, of mental conditions. Thus in aphasia, in some of its forms, intellectual speech may be lost, yet emotional expression be